Rev Ann Fox looks to new chapter in retirement

Rev. Ann Fox of the Unitarian Universalist Church is retiring at the end of June.

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By Peggy Aulisio

southcoasttoday.com

By Peggy Aulisio

Posted Jun. 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Peggy Aulisio
Posted Jun. 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

FAIRHAVEN — Rev. Ann Fox of the Unitarian Universalist Church was helping a parishioner with an obituary when the Advocate editor arrived on May 23. This is one of the lesser-known duties of a minister.

Rev. Fox, who is 68, will be retiring at the end of June.

"I'm just feeling like it's time," she said. "The congregation is thriving and this is a good time to be stepping back."

She added, "There was some dismay at first and now there's some excitement about the new person."

An interim minister, Rev. Bob McKetchnie, will be coming from Attleboro to serve for two years. That's the way the UU as it's called handles the transition to a new minister.

The church members "will discern by surveys who they are now and what they wish for in a new minister," Rev. Fox said. She said they will create a "portfolio" and begin the search in the second year.

Rev. Fox grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in the Midlands area, 30 miles north of Birmingham and 30 miles south of Manchester. She received a bachelor's degree in English literature and an M.A. in English education at City College of New York.

Before finding her ultimate vocation, she had several careers, starting as a teacher at a junior high school in New York City. She moved to California and had two children with her first husband, who was from India.

Rev. Fox lived in California for 18 years, nine in the Bay Area and nine in Southern California. She taught school, then did technical writing in the software industry.

Rev. Fox said when her children were grown, she realized she didn't want to do technical writing anymore.

She found that her strongest interest was in "all these theological questions." That's when she thought about going to a seminary "and couldn't get it out of my mind."

It was at Boston University where she earned a master's of theology.

"I think I've always been that way," Rev. Fox said of her interest in religion. She said a minister told her, "'I think that's where you belong.'"

Rev. Fox said she led some services and "loved it and found I was thinking about it all the time."

Explaining what drew her to being a minister, she said, "It's about connection, whether it's with spirit or people, or maybe it's the same thing. If with people, connecting deeply, it's a spiritual connection."

Religion should be "connecting you with God," Rev. Fox said, or "with the deep spirit of the universe."

Rev. Fox, whose first husband was from India, has a strong interest in world religions, which she has shared with her parishioners. She said one thing that drew her to the Unitarian Church "is that openness to world religions."

Rev. Fox called Unitarian Universalists "an eclectic religion with very deep roots." She said they have a strong interest in social justice, which the transcendentalists had, too.

Rev. Fox said Unitarians have a deep kinship with the transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister who "read Hindu scriptures before going to bed at night."

They are also interested in the environmental movement.

"They are inspired by nature," Rev. Fox said.

Rev. Fox, who remarried, lives in Dartmouth with her husband, who is from Holland.

The couple plan to stay at their home in Dartmouth. "We like the area," she said of their decision to stay here.

Another reason to stay is that she will be minister emerita of the church.

Sermons are a big part of a minister's role. Rev. Fox said they would be focusing on the theme of "Transforming Loss" on the Sunday over Memorial Day weekend, She said they would invite people to "come and write the names of loved ones they've lost for that memorial aspect of it."

Facing retirement can be a difficult transition, but Rev. Fox said she'll be called back occasionally to fill in for absent ministers.

She still has family in England she'd like to visit and her husband has family in Holland, where her daughter works. Rev. Fox's daughter is a marketing writer in the corporate world and her son is a rock musician and composer.

Of retiring, Rev. Fox said, "I think the thing to do is not do a lot and see if the Universe sends me something. I'll read a lot without having a goal to produce a sermon at the end of the week. I'd like to see what it's like to be retired."